Maybe Tom has mentioned this before, but the Flaming Lips' highest-charting song was "She Don't Use Jelly," which made it to number 55 on the Hot 100. It made it to number nine on the modern rock songs chart too, and I remember Beavis and Butthead digging it.
Oh yeah, and it's a 10!
In the late 90s, me and a lot of other people thought politically correct scolds would be a bigger problem than politically incorrect scolds, and boy did we get that one wrong!
I listened to both the Slim Shady LP and the Marshall Mathers LP every day for months when they came out. I thought Eminem was the best rapper ever at the time. But even then...I never really liked the violent anti-Kim stuff. He was a technically amazing rapper, and funny with all sorts of weird references. He was unique. But 20 years later, the stuff I like about Eminem is mostly for the backpacker rap nerds, and the stuff I find offensive and hard to listen to basically helped jump-start the alt-right and poisoned the Internet. South Park, another contemporary pop culture product that seemed very refreshing at the time, makes me similarly uneasy now.
I would be fine with Tom writing about number one albums next, but I think I would enjoy Tom writing about every number one Hot Rap Single or Hot Modern Rock Track beginning from when those charts were inaugurated in the late 80s even more.
Ram is the bomb, and Monkberry Moon Delight is as weird as anything the Beatles or John Lennon did. I agree that Paul doesn't get enough credit for his strange detours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrthE_waCV8
Since we haven't talked about the Bee Gees until now, gotta put in a good word for my favorite weird early Bee Gees song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk3VCrPaL2Y
Can't believe you don't like the version of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow on Tapestry, it sounds like the 60s ending. When I lived in LA and tried to be a screenwriter, I wrote an unfinished screenplay about the Weathermen and Carole King's version of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow woulda been playing over the end credits had the movie ever gotten made.
Always interesting to see who is still precluded from getting taken seriously in an age of poptimist criticism, and what excuses are cited for not taking them seriously.
i am down with poptimism when it means making rockists acknowledge that other forms of music can be transcendent, but when poptimism asks me to swallow materialism and inequality because to do otherwise would be judgmental is when I get off the train. Yuck. Is there anyone on Stereogum's staff that finds this sort of sentiment objectionable or at the very least, worthy of mockery? A catchy song does not redeem everything.
I hear what you are saying but the circus riff you hate was probably the main reason this was my favorite Motown song as a kid. I found it when I found my mom's box of old 45s and it just slayed me.
Need to hear about the last time you heard Cherry Cherry in a random place and your day changed for the better. Did you drop everything and drink some scotch?
Kinda want to hear more about your relative and their Neil Diamond tribute band. Why did they choose Diamond to make a tribute band for? Where do they play gigs? What makes them successful? Do they play your family parties?
Hadn't heard that Marmalade song, not my thing, but had to go check if "I See the Rain" made the top 10 but it didn't even chart in the US or UK! One of my favorite psychedelic songs ever, what a crime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCn61DuBrgo
I love when a number one song isn't premeditated. Seems like no effort was put into making this a hit by the artist, yet it was his only hit and has a pop culture life beyond most songwriters' wildest dreams. I guess now this only happens when a song gets popped into a meme that takes off and people watching the video propel the song to number one, but in that case the song usually feels secondary to the punchline.
I find it nuts that when Elvis had his "comeback" special, he was only 33! Growing up and learning about rock music, he sounded like he must have been fifty or something at the time, the way they always made it sound like he had been away for so long. He wasn't a teenager at this point, but he is not all that old either, especially when you consider that, say, Drake is 32 right now.
I always lump this album together mentally with the Schoolhouse Rock Rocks comp, which was full of alt rock covers too. The Blind Melon version of 3 Is a Magic Number is awesome, and Skee-Lo doing The Tale of Mr. Morton slaps too.
I think I saw this version of Romeo and Juliet in 8th grade English too (why do they always pick 8th grade to study that play?) and my teacher went so far as to make her own edited VHS version of the movie with the nudity removed.
Childish Gambino's "This Is America" went to number one earlier this year and arguably zeitgeisty protest music in the way you describe. Maybe that goes a little further than you are talking about hear though.
Black Eyed Peas' "Where Is The Love?" is a good Bush-era example, though that song gets pretty specific compared to the Rascals too.
I haven't listened to much Imogen Heap since maybe over a decade ago, but I loved Frou Frou's "It's Good to Be In Love" circa Garden State and Imogen's "Daylight Robbery" circa the OC finale, when other songs in this list inspired me to go deeper on her discography.
First time I heard "Girl Watcher" it sounded so familiar, but a little off. Did a little digging and it turns out the game show Wheel of Fortune had a jingle based on it called "I'm a Wheel Watcher" back in the 80s and that is exactly why I felt like I had heard it before.
Find it odd that Tom dismissed Bacharach as a whole based on this song. No love for the Dusty Springfield, Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick versions of his songs?
Do I want to remember the 1997/1998 that this compilation presents? I can't deny it really. Aside from maybe Radiohead, I made sure to hate every one of these songs at the time. It was my identity to hate the bad songs on this compilaton: the teen pop (okay, at least Hanson played their own instruments and wrote their own songs), the bland one-hit rock wonders (okay, maybe Harvey Danger is kinda fun), the motherfucking swing revival song (Cherry Poppin' Daddies? C'mon now). But looking back, I don't hate this stuff nearly as much as I did at the time. Maybe I wouldn't deliberately listen to it either, but if someone put it on, I might even have a nostalgic memory about how hard I tried to hate these songs. Still can't bring myself to like them, but maybe if I give it another 20 years....
Young Classic Rocker Ryan Leas coming through again!
I was a huge R.E.M. fan growing up, and was an impressionable teenager when Up came out, with a couple of besties that also loved the whole R.E.M. catalog. Up came out and we probably loved it more than we should have, it was the latest release by a band we loved, it didn't really have any hits, radio had soured on them by then, but we kept playing it until the treasures revealed themselves. "At My Most Beautiful" is corny as hell, but man did that song hit me in the gut. "Why Not Smile" and "Hope" also sounded perfect to my moody teenage ears. It was a different time. You listened to albums over and over again until they made sense, because you could only buy or tape so many albums. You sort of forced your way through the difficult patches because you didn't have any options, and tunes stuck on you in a way that they don't much now because if it leaves you confused the first time now you literally have the world of music at your fingertips, and it takes so much willpower to do now what came natural back then. I am glad this is getting any revisiting at all. It is probably a minor album compared to all the obvious R.E.M. classics, but it was an album that came out at the right time for me, and I will always treasure it in that personal way, probably the way the band intended, all told.
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